


Taste and Temptation

by thegingermidget



Category: Hannibal (TV), Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, F/F, M/M, established relationships - Freeform, post-series traveling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25750768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegingermidget/pseuds/thegingermidget
Summary: Eve and Villanelle have gone off on their own, traveling and getting to know each other better. Hannibal and Will have too. Both couples happen to have dark pasts and trouble with the law, but that hasn't really put a damper on their vacations. The four of them happen to meet at an opera in Florence but when they keep running into each other, they have to wonder if their meetings are coincidence or something that could put their travels in danger.Villaneve meets Hannigram on the run.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 15
Kudos: 134





	1. Firenze

“There are only three reasons to go to an opera,” Villanelle said sagely as she shrugged on her dress. She turned her back to Eve, asking wordlessly for help with her zipper. Eve had only managed to talk her into a night at the opera this morning, and they had run out almost immediately to find something to wear. “One: an opportunity to sparkle. Two: champagne and silly rich people—”

“—That sounds like three reasons right there.”

“And three: making out in those tiny opera boxes.”

“Right,” said Eve, trying to suppress a smile. The Teatro del Maggio Musicale didn’t really have boxed seating, but she liked where Villanelle’s head was at. The night promised to be stunning, sparkling, spectacular and Eve wasn’t about to let the threat of Villanelle’s boredom keep them from a night to remember. 

The truth was that Eve wanted a chance to shine. She wasn’t outrageous in her fashion the way Villanelle was, though her wardrobe had undergone a significant upgrade since they had started traveling together. She saw the clothes that Villanelle wore and the way that she was used to treating herself to the best money could buy, and she wanted a taste of that. Why Florentine opera? Well, Villanelle had wanted to show her Florence and Eve was already aware of the three reasons to go to an opera. She wasn’t much of a music snob.

She knew that Villanelle looked at her, wanted her. She knew there were a hundred reasons they had fallen in together and love likely undergirded them all, but she wanted to feel worthy of that attraction. And she knew she could look the part, if given the opportunity.

Their hotel wasn’t far from the theater but they rented a car to save their dresses and hair from wanton destruction. Dusk was falling over the city, stealing its amber and replacing it with soft lavender and blue. The theater was a tremendous modern square standing triumphantly in front of them as they exited the car. The driver opened the door for them. Eve offered Villanelle her hand and Villanelle smirked at it. Eve had picked up some of Villanelle's mannerisms throughout the course of their time together. The ability to slip into a role, to steal someone else's gesture or expression was becoming second nature, a game the two of them played and a secret joke between the two of them. She was playing the part of a gentleman and Villanelle was letting her.

The theater was luminous against the darkening sky and it swarmed with a crush of people, nearly as extravagantly dressed as the two of them. Since they had decided to run off together, the two women had been living off of Eve's life savings and the profits of Villanelle's ex-career. Eve had sold away her life in England and Villanelle had done the same in France. They spent money like they breathed air and they never really worried about running out. They fit in seamlessly with the Florentine art-crowd attending the opening night of this season's production of The Barber of Seville. Hardly anyone gave Villanelle's loud couture dress with a print of Roman centurions splashed across the skirt a second glance and Eve's dark red evening gown cut through the crowd like a knife. The woman at the fashion house where Villanelle had procured her dress insisted that it be worn with a gold crown nestled in her hair and Villanelle had eagerly accepted. There was something Byzantine and ancient about the heavy golden crown set amidst the locks of her hair and against the crimson satin of her dress. Eve had styled her hair down tonight, black and curly, and an accessory in its own right. 

After making sure that their appearance had made a mark with all the right members of the entrenched Florentine art patrons, they found their way to their seats in la Cavea, the cavernous theater hall that made the Teatro del Maggio Musicale perhaps the best opera hall in Florence. Eve could feel Villanelle's disappointment on arriving at their seats and realizing that there was not a private opera box to be found in the whole theater but Eve leaned in and whispered in her ear that maybe the best things deserve an audience. 

Soon the lights dimmed and the orchestra struck up the opening notes of the entr'acte. Though Eve was not a music aficionado, she found herself wrapped up in the sights and sounds of the stage and the press of Villanelle's leg against hers. They held hands throughout the first act. Villanelle whispered the worst jokes in her ear and Eve found herself enjoying the show far more than she had expected to and on the verge of bursting out into laughter.

“I think you would look amazing in that dress,” Villanelle whispered when Rosina, the contralto and love interest, stepped out towards center stage to begin her first solo piece. 

“I think you would look amazing in that suit,” Eve said, referring to one of Rosina’s servants in the ensemble cast. 

“If you want to see me on my knees so badly, all you have to do is ask.”

Eve snorted and earned herself a few backward glances. The only thing the evening needed was a few more glasses of prosecco and she knew that those could shortly be acquired. 

They made it through the first act without incident and made their way into the lobby during intermission smiling and radiant. Eve had made Villanelle promise that if they were going to leave or sneak off somewhere they would do it during the second act after having given the opera and the evening a fair try before deciding that they would rather be in bed. Eve had been promised a glamorous night at the opera and she was damned if she was going to be dragged out by her aroused partner before she got to gleam and sip prosecco and hobnob with people who were probably far more rich and famous than she ever aspired to be.

Villanelle decided that it was her turn to be the gentleman and went off to secure flutes of prosecco from the bar while Eve found herself a spot against the massive curved wall of the theater hall to stand and people-watch. She saw women in staggeringly tall heels make their way to the ladies room and men in sharp black suits congregate near the dark glass windows. Eve made her way over, just outside of the reach of their little bubble to look out at the city of Florence lit up before going to sleep. 

“It’s a city that can only really be seen from the outside. A piece of art itself that was made to be looked at.”

Eve turned, startled at the sound of a man’s voice. He was a tall, bookish looking man, standing apart from the crowd just as she was and gazing out at the Duomo, the bridges, and all the other points of light they could see from inside this shining lantern of a building. 

“It’s beautiful,” said Eve. “I haven’t seen much of it yet, but I can tell it’s gorgeous.” She paused for a moment, not sure if it was polite to ask what she wanted to say and then deciding that she didn’t much care either way. “I’m sorry, are you American?”

The man laughed softly. Eve liked the way his brown hair curled and fell into his eyes. “I am as a matter of fact. Accent give me away?”

“It’s not often I meet people from the States. I think I’ve missed it.”

“You’re not one of those Europeans who think it sounds like nails and broken glass?”

“Give me a hard ‘r’ any day,” Eve said sportingly and then, impulsively, “I’m Eve, by the way.”

The man nodded. “Nice to meet you, Eve, I’m Will.”

He had kind eyes, Eve thought, which made him seem younger than perhaps he was. He appeared quiet but self-assured, like he had been storm-tossed for most of his life and come through on the other side steady and calm. 

“Enjoying the show?” Eve asked, trying to make conversation.

Will shrugged. “I don’t really have a palette for high art. I’m mostly here for my partner and his attempts to make me cultured.”

Eve nodded. “I’m afraid my girlfriend’s in the same boat. I dragged her here with the promise of couture and prosecco.”

“At least you delivered.”

\------

Across the lobby, Villanelle stood at the bar and waited for the bartender to notice her. She disliked being away from Eve and surrounded by so many other people. People who bumped into her dress and stepped on her toes, people who cut in at the bar even though they had arrived after her. It was doing a number on the placid, bored expression she had pasted on for the night, the one that said I’m better than you, I’m better than all of this, but I’m here and you should be grateful. She was getting annoyed and she wasn’t going to be liable for what she did when she was annoyed.

She edged her way in between a man and a woman at the bar. She couldn’t be sure if they were together and she really didn’t care. 

“Due bicchieri di prosecco, per favore,” she said, in as loud and as kind a voice as she could muster. She needed to be assertive but not rude, though tonight was testing her control. Really, they could have gone out to a nice dinner or a museum or some party that combined the two if Eve had really wanted some mix of culture and class and to mix with a crowd of people in shiny outfits who assumed they had either. Instead, she had spent two hours in a dark room with Eve while they whispered and held hands while enduring the stares of a hundred other people, and those were just the ones seated close by. 

Villanelle leaned against the bar and pulled a face at the woman she had pushed aside in order to secure her place at the bar, the once who had been glaring at her for the intrusion. The man on Villanelle’s opposite side offered the woman his arm and the two of them made their way off in a huff. 

“ _È difficile essere altro che maleducato in una stanza come questa_ ,” a low voice said, just above her ear. The skin prickled on the back of Villanelle’s neck and she steeled herself with a cold smile before turning. 

“ _Scusami_?” 

“ _Sei italiana_?” The man asked. “ _Forse francese_?” His stringy, gray hair was pulled back neatly and streaked with gray while his suit was classic but plain, dark black with a satin lapel and a bowtie. For Villanelle, a person’s appearance often spoke volumes about a person’s character, but in this case, the appearance seemed designed not to say much. 

“ _Il mio italiano è buono mais mon français est meilleur_ ,” Villanelle said easily. “You were saying something about the rude people in this room?”

“In a crowded room, it is difficult to be polite.” The man said, taking two amber flutes from the bartender and offering them both to Villanelle.

“Grazie,” said Villanelle, knowing full well that the man in front of her had ordered these drinks some time before her. “Perhaps there are some manners to be had in a crowd.”

“We must create the society we want to live in.” The man said smoothly. “But then again, it is easy to be polite to a beautiful woman.”

The ice in Villanelle’s veins had returned and she was almost certain that her polite mask had slipped from her face. “I’m not interested,” she said, lifting up her second glass in mock salute, trying to give him an obvious hint. 

“Neither am I, but when one sees a thing of beauty, it is only right to acknowledge it, don’t you think?”

Villanelle was scanning the crowd, looking for Eve and a clear way of getting to her. There, by the windows, she spotted Eve’s cloud of black hair and the rich carmine lines of her gown.

“I’m hardly the only beautiful woman here. Perhaps you can find another to look at.”

The man followed her gaze. “Ah. Yours?”

Villanelle allowed herself a small smile. “Yes, mine.”

The man retrieved two more glasses of prosecco, the one’s Villanelle had ordered, and stepped aside. “It seems we’re headed in the same direction.”

\------

“So what do you do, Will? What brings you to Florence?”

Eve decided she liked this man. He was exactly the kind of person she had been hoping to meet; kind, intelligent but humble, a short-term vacation friend. 

“My husband has always wanted to show me the city. He’s fascinated by the art, architecture, the history, the food, much like everyone else here. It’s nice to see him so… passionate.”

Eve smiled. The two of them sounded sweet together and she couldn’t help but picture her own partner and the places they had been; Villanelle’s exuberance at finding something new and brilliant for them to try together, the look in her eyes when Eve tried Florentine steak and pear ravioli a few days ago or when they found the perfect dress for Eve to wear tonight was what made all of the rest of their lives together, all of the sticky, awful, difficult parts worth it. 

“But what do you do? Back in the States?” Eve asked again.

“I used to teach psychology at a university but I’ve retired for the time being.”

“Retired? There’s no way you’re older than me.”

Will laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of guessing, but my husband has enough money of his own and when he said he wanted to travel… Well, I couldn’t say no. But tell me about you, what do you do?”

Eve panicked slightly at being asked about herself, but she had practiced this by now, and she was proud of the fact that her face remained even. She wouldn’t lie exactly, but her story was vague enough to be true without being the truth. “Well, it’s a bit of a coincidence that you taught psychology. I used to consult with British law enforcement on criminal psychology. I find it absolutely fascinating. Are you familiar at all with the field?”

Will looked surprised. “Very familiar, actually.” Eve noticed then a slight shift in his features, like a window that had been blown open by the wind and then quickly shut. He cleared his throat. “It was a specialty of mine, actually.”

“Ever publish anything? I was never an academic, but I’ve read a lot.”

Will blinked. “A couple of articles, nothing major.” He glanced away and his face brightened again. “Ah, Eve, this is my husband, Hiram.”

Eve was taken aback when she extended her hand and Hiram lifted it to his mouth. When she had her hand back she suppressed a shiver and was relieved to find Villanelle at her side with her promised glass of prosecco. 

“There you are,” Eve said, trying not to sound as eager to have her back as she felt. “Will here was helping me pass the time while you were gone and this is his husband, Hiram.”

“We’ve met,” Villanelle said shortly. 

Eve gave her tone a momentary questioning look and decided they could discuss whatever it was later. She turned to Hiram and noted in the gentle but possessive hand placed at Will’s waist. Eve smiled. “How are you enjoying the show?”

Will’s husband had an accent Eve couldn’t place, but he was charming enough and enamoured with Will in a way that made Eve warm inside. He wasn’t elitist when he could have been and he didn’t dismiss Eve’s thoughts on the opera as uninformed which he could have. He seemed to know a lot about art and culture and he couldn’t help himself from offering up a couple of recommendations of things to see and do and eat, especially when Eve insisted. 

“My husband is an exceptional chef. His praise of anyone else’s work is rare,” said Will.

Hiram frowned playfully. “I’m not so hard to please as all that.”

Will’s laugh seemed to burst from him in surprise. “No, you just have exacting standards few are ever able to meet.”

They were a lovely couple and Eve wondered if this was what it was like to make friends on vacation. She and Villanelle had been travelling on their own, never staying too long in one location, never getting to know anyone, for almost a year now. Perhaps it was time to make some new acquaintances. Was this what normal people did when their vacations weren’t also a run from the law? Eve couldn’t really be sure. She had never really been interested in other people on a trip before. Before, her ideal vacation with Niko had been sitting on a beach in Majorca and they didn’t get around to doing that much. Something about these two men intrigued her; their easy comradery, their love for each other, their interests in art and culture, the way their lives even at a distance seemed to resemble her own.

The only fly in the ointment seemed to be Villanelle. She smiled and laughed when she was supposed to but refused to engage in the conversation. She shot icy glares at Eve when she thought no one else was looking and Eve could not figure out why. When the ushers gave the signal for everyone to return to their seats, Villanelle took Eve by the arm, shot a winning smile at the two men, and muscled Eve back to their seats.

“What is going on with you?” Eve hissed.

“Later,” Villanelle promised.

\------

They managed to make it to the end of the show without incident. Eve was almost certain that Villanelle had fallen asleep at some point in the second act. She was grateful they hadn’t decided to attend the Teatro’s production of Handel’s Guilio Cesare or something with more intermissions, which would have given Villanelle more chances to make a run for it.

She was awake by the time the curtain came down and the cast took their final bows. Eve noticed a warm rosiness in Villanelle’s cheeks, the sign of a decent nap, and thought that maybe they had both had a decent night at the opera and that maybe Villanelle was refreshed enough for a walk down by the river before they retired for the night. 

“Have fun?” Eve asked as they left the theater, headed out onto a large park concourse, modern and concrete-coated just outside of the building. 

“So much fun,” said Villanelle teasing. She tucked her arm through Eve’s and the two of them headed off into the night, away from the bright stripes that covered the opera hall. They both wore jackets over their summer dresses but Villanelle seemed to seek out Eve’s warmth. 

“Does that mean you’ll come with me to the Concertgebouw when we’re in Amsterdam next week?”

Villanelle scowled against Eve’s shoulder. “You’ll be on your own for that.”

“I’m kidding.”

They took the long way down to the Arno, past the shining Duomo and through winding cobblestone streets. They walked slowly for the sake of their heels, enjoying the quiet of the night and the sounds of the last few people out drinking on a Sunday night. 

“I didn’t like those men we met tonight,” Villanelle said, breaking the quiet rhythm of their walk.

“Oh? What about them?”

Villanelle didn’t answer for some time. When she did, her voice was low. “They reminded me a bit too much of us. And the older man, Hiram, if you want to call him that,” she said his name mockingly, “He was cold, fleshless. Charming enough, warm enough, but there was something empty underneath. A hole.”

“When did you become such an acute judge of character?”

“I know him, Eve, I know people like him and you do too.”

Eve frowned. They had stopped walking when they reached the Ponte Santa Trinita and could look out over the center of the river. It was a clear night, and the white moonlight mixed with the golden lamplight along the river, rippling gently as Eve looked down onto it. 

“There is very little chance that we just met a serial killer at the opera, Villanelle.”

“Plenty of people just did. You’re telling me you didn’t feel something wrong about the two of them? Something familiar?”

Eve looked out at the Ponte Vecchio across the water from them, at the shadowy figures still lazily crossing it, and at the two figures leaning against the railing under the rightmost arch. 

“I don’t know,” said Eve. “But I’d rather not find out.”


	2. Amsterdam

Eve watched the woman across from her stare out across the canal and chew her hagelslag. She had absolutely no idea how a grown woman wearing a couture gown out for breakfast could eat like a child. As she watched, a chocolate sprinkle bounced down onto the sinuous folds of the red and rose fabric and onto the sidewalk. The sprinkles were impossible to keep on the bread and Villanelle rounded up the couple that remained on her plate with a delicate finger. 

Eve leaned forward in her chair. “So, you’re not going to go into any museums with me?”

Villanelle pressed her fingertip to the pile of sprinkles and lifted the ones that stuck to her mouth.

“Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p’.

“None at all?”

Villanelle sighed. “I’m not good at museums; I hate being quiet.”

“I know but—”

“And the Rijksmuseum is sooo boring. All still lifes and paintings of people half in the dark, most of which you’ve already seen on a postcard. Konstantin made me go last year, and I refuse to do it again.”

Eve held up her hands in surrender. “Fine. I’ll go by myself. We’ll meet up for dinner tonight?” Eve paused when she saw the look on Villanelle’s face. “What?”

“Don’t go to the museum by yourself,” she whined.

“Why not?”

“Because that’s… kind of sad. I mean, it’s sad that you want to go to the museum at all, but I have this image of you wandering, lost and alone, listening in on some tour guide group as they pass by.”

Eve gaped, ”I would not.”

This time Villanelle held up her hands. “It’s fine. I will once again show just how kind and generous I am by going with you to the awful museum.”

“It’s one of the world’s best museums, but okay,” said Eve, letting Villanelle’s declaration of sainthood pass by without a word.

“But, in exchange for my charity, we have to go somewhere else first.”

Eve lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“You’ll see.”

They paid the check at the restaurant and Villanelle took them on a walk. With a destination she wanted to go to in mind, Villanelle walked with a purpose, making Eve grateful for her comfortable walking shoes.

“You know the Rijksmuseum is in the opposite direction,” she said as they crossed another bridge to get to the other side of the canal. 

“We’ll take the metro.”

Villanelle didn’t rush them past cute window displays or racks of clothes set out on the sidewalk or a couple of market tables. They paused to look, but all along Eve could sense that Villanelle was biding her time, that there was something she wanted Eve to see at the end of all this. 

It took Eve a while to notice that the types of stores they were passing had slowly changed along the way. There were still cafes and restaurants but mixed among those were storefronts for a store that only sold condoms, rooms for rent with long-legged women on the sign, and when they got out onto the main thoroughfare, in a rainbow of bright neon lights: Sex Palace.

“You wanted to show me the red light district? I’ve read the guidebook, Villanelle, I’m pretty well aware of what goes on here.”

“We’re not there yet.” Villanelle took Eve by the arm and led her up the street a bit. They walked past a block of wide windowed storefronts, some occupied and some not in the daylight hours. They passed through a part of the street that smelled like piss and pot, and some buildings that looked to Eve like residential housing and Eve couldn’t quite imagine living here. She was reminded of her tiny apartment just outside of London and wondered if she could have gotten used to a life here just as she had on her own once again over a year ago. 

They stepped to the side of the road to let a car pass and then suddenly, Villanelle wasn’t walking anymore. She was staring up at a wide-windowed storefront. In this one, there was a woman in a mask preening in the window and two more standing in the doorway. Villanelle didn’t seem to mind that she was being watched. 

“Recognize it?” Villanelle asked. She folded her arms across her chest and nodded appreciatively.

Eve took in the sight of the brothel, much like the others they had passed by on their walk. “No? Wait.” Eve looked a little closer. She stepped towards the building and turned around looking up. There. Up on the third floor of the building across the street. One security camera and then two, both aimed at the brothel’s entrance. She had seen this building before.

Eve turned to Villanelle.

“Is this where…?”

Villanelle nodded. Eve looked at the square window and tried to imagine what it would have been like, bathed in red light, bundled up against the cold, standing in a crowd of people, and watching a man be gutted in the window. Horror dressed in pink skirts and a pig mask, outlandish and impossible to believe until the blood starts pouring and the man keeps screaming and both the bleeding and the screaming begin to slow and nobody moves. Eve read the transcripts of a few interviews they had managed to collect from that night. Some people in the crowd had thought it was some kind of sick joke. She read about a tourist visiting the area on his first night in Amsterdam and how he wondered if that thing was normal around here, he assumed from the very start that it was all an elaborate performance. In a way, he was right but that didn’t make the blood any less real. 

Eve wondered what it must have been like, seeing the man on the street and luring him inside. The satisfaction of knowing even as he trailed behind her that she had won. It must have been hot and sweaty inside that stupid mask, and Eve had never asked Villanelle why she had chosen that particular disguise. She assumed that Villanelle had done her research carefully, and cultivated a look that she knew her mark would not be able to resist. She wondered what it felt like to watch his gross satisfaction, his ugly confidence, turn to annoyance and then fear. When he realized he couldn’t escape, couldn’t cry out for help, and that his traitorous desires had turned to ash in his mouth. 

Eve didn’t wonder so much about what it was like to actually stick the knife in. That wasn’t the part that interested her.

She turned to face Villanelle. “I wanted to come after you so badly.”

“I waited for you. You never came.”

Eve pressed her lips together in a line. “I’m here now.”

Villanelle wrapped an arm around Eve’s waist. Even now, months after they had run off together, they were still negotiating what it was like to know and to be with each other so casually. Each touch seemed to come with a silent, incomplete question, like this? Am I allowed? Do you want?

“I was up there in that window when I saw the other woman pull up. I waited all day and those whores were really rude.”

Villanelle had turned petulant and Eve saw that while they had cut close to something real, any hurt that she felt was in the past now. That had at her waist was guiding them towards something kinder, a future for the two of them. 

“Aw, babe,” Eve said as she gave Villanelle a peck on her cheek. 

Villanelle grinned and gave her a shove.

\------

“Dad! Father!” Abigail’s face lit up when she saw her father’s waiting for her in the terminal. It had been six months since she had seen them. The separation had been a long but necessary one, both for her father’s safety and her studies at Georgetown. She was making her own way in the world, but she loved the comfort and safety of her adoptive fathers.

Will caught her up in his arms before passing her over to Hannibal. He smiled at the sight of his dysfunctional family together again. He still had days when he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that this was his life, still unsure that he had done whatever penance required to bring him this. Those years spent cocooned in darkness and blood had come out into the light. 

“Glad you could make it,” Will said, shouldering Abigail’s duffle bag. 

Hannibal pressed a kiss to her temple. “I wouldn’t miss it,” said Abigail simply, as though unaware that even just her saying so made their family a little more complete.

They tossed her luggage into the trunk of the car they had rented for the occasion and settled in for the drive to their apartment. They asked Abigail about Georgetown and her art history studies, how she was enjoying her junior year and her professors. 

Will wouldn’t have said that his last few years with Hannibal had been dark. He thought of their time in Cuba with a hot, bright, technicolor radiance. He found himself comforted by the way their lives seemed to fit together now, all of their rough edges not smoothed away, but complemented by the other’s, like a key in a lock rather than a stone on the shore chipped away at by the wind and the sea. 

But Will looked at the openness in Abigail’s face, the way she brightened to tell them stories of classmates and about the things she had learned, about the psychology minor she had picked up in honor of her dad. He wondered if his eyes had adjusted to seeing in the dark over the years, with only occasional flashes of light.

This wasn’t to say that he didn’t love Hannibal, or Abigail, or their life together, but he sometimes laughed quietly to himself, thinking about all of how his perspective had warped over the years, how he had changed beyond his control. He hadn’t foreseen a life with Hannibal as something that could be joyful, as something that could bring him closer to the happiness found by other people. In his first few years of knowing the man, he had assumed that their kinship meant that they were different from ordinary people, that their lives were marred by blood and violence, and whatever solace they could find together would have to be enough for them. He hadn’t dared to dream of a life on the run that might be happy.

And yet as they climbed the steps to their apartment house and showed Abigail inside, happy was exactly what he felt. Will was light, his mind largely free from the pressure of other people’s personalities, and he allowed himself to live in the moment, one in which he was supported by his husband and his daughter. Even after two years of running and traveling, Will still found himself coming to terms with where he was now and where he had been. Standing in the kitchen of their temporary apartment in Amsterdam, helping Hannibal prepare lunch while really only making conversation, he feels a sense of peace he never thought he deserved.

After a lunch of vegetable soup, carefully selected from the farmer’s market this morning and simmering while they waited at the airport, Abigail finished unpacking and the three of them headed to the Rijksmuseum. Abigail had two weeks to spend in Europe but she wanted to make her time in Amsterdam count. One of her art history professors had begged her to check out the museum’s collection of paintings by the Dutch masters when she heard where Abigail was headed. Abigail assured her that her father likely wouldn’t let her leave the city until she had visited the Gallery of Honor. She didn’t need to be goaded into visiting the museum, though; she had a passion for art, both the beauty of it and the scientific minutia of analyzing and preserving precious pieces. Abigail had asked her fathers for a preliminary trip to the museum on her first day in Amsterdam, both so that she could spend the rest of her trip on other things and so that she planned her attack on the museum better over the course of her short stay. 

Will had spent a similar day in the museum early on in his stay in Amsterdam. He and Hannibal had taken a pilgrimage to the Gallery of Honor and taken in the serene and stately beauty of the portraits and the gentle strokes of light and shadow that marked the masters’ paintings. Will wasn’t especially fond of art, his appetite for spending hours in a museum staring at supposedly masterful works of art had not grown over the course of his time with Hannibal, but Will enjoyed watching Hannibal as he looked at the art, as he spoke about it at length with a fire in his eyes and his low, steady voice. Will laughed to himself when he noticed others listening in, when Hannibal managed to cultivate a small tour group around him, mesmerized by the sound of his voice and his passion for these paintings. 

He didn’t think it was much of a stretch that Abigail might harbor a similar delight upon seeing the paintings at the museum, and for Will, that was enough to warrant another look inside. 

Once inside the museum, they made their way upstairs to the jewels of the museum. They stopped for Jan Asselijn’s threatened swan, Rembrandt’s Jewish bride, Vermeer’s milkmaid before heading towards the prize of the museum’s collection, the dark blue walls of the Night Watch Gallery. 

Here was where Abigail really spoke up. She talked about the museum’s efforts to catalog every inch of the massive portrait, identify the pigments Rembrandt used by their crystalline structures on an atomic level, and their preparation for a huge restoration project on the piece that had never been attempted before. 

“I think I’d really like to be a part of something like that,” Abigail said, her eyes still surveying the painting. “Taking something I love, something that is loved all over the world and making sure that it lasts. Breaking it down to its smallest components, knowing it on an intimate level probably unknown even to the painter and giving it life.”

Will hadn’t pictured a life like that for Abigail, but he saw now what drew her to a major in art history that had initially thrown him years before. He saw an opportunity for Abigail to work with her hands, for her to be precise and exacting, to cultivate a set of unique skills in the service of preserving something she loved. He thought of a teacup broken but lovingly repaired with precision and care, nearly flawless in its new state. He wanted that for her. 

Will spoke up. “An art in itself, reanimation and continuation.” Abigail smiled.

They moved on from the main galleries that were becoming crowded again after a lunchtime lull and headed for some of the smaller rooms and eventually to the earliest works of the museum in the basement. Abigail didn’t have as much interest in this particular period, so they decided to go through it at a quicker pace before leaving the museum for the day. It was quieter down here, with most of the floor reserved for the museum’s special collections and the somber, saintly altarpieces and statues of the medieval and renaissance exhibits. The upper floors had more exciting exhibits like the Golden Age masters and Van Gogh’s self-portrait, but there weren’t any such big-ticket items down here. A few other patrons moved through the rooms down here alongside them, but aside from some scattered, whispered conversations, the place was as quiet as a tomb.

But as they passed from one room to the next, Will noted a louder voice, a woman’s, making some kind of joke about a statue of the head of John the Baptist. He turned to look and saw two women, one blond and the other with a cloud of black hair pulled back. The second woman turned away from her partner to choke down a laugh and Will found that he recognized her, or he thought he did. 

He turned back to Hanibal and Abigail, who were headed in the opposite direction and hurried to catch up, all the while thinking about those two women and trying to remember where he had seen them before.

\------

Villanelle looked around at what looked like room after room of gilded frames with boring draped figures inside. The least she could have said for the pictures upstairs was that they were life-like. Down here, the figures verged on cartoonish, and they all had the same sad expression. She walked slowly past a painting of a mother and a baby with six-pack abs.

“What are we doing down here?” She tried her best not to sound like a child for Eve’s sake, but it wasn’t her best effort.

“You were saying before that you came here once and were inspired. I was wondering if there might be some inspiration for you down here,” Eve said, looking at a carving of Saint Sebastian serene and blushing but impaled by arrows.

Villanelle pasted on a dubious expression. “I didn’t think you wanted that kind of inspiration from me anymore.”

“You never know, could be fun.” Eve was clearly joking, and Villanelle, already this far into the awful museum, supposed she could play along.

She wandered over to a portrait of a woman with a man’s head on a platter. She cocked her head to the side and frowned while Eve caught up to her. 

“‘Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist,’” Eve read aloud from the card beside it.

Villanelle nodded, playing an appreciative art connoisseur. “You know it doesn’t really look like that.”

“What?”

“When you cut off someone’s head. You’d have to wait a long time for it to look like that. All the blood would have to drain away, she would have had to clean it up really well, and the neck doesn’t really look like an anatomy textbook drawing once it’s been hacked off.” Villanelle shrugged. “But maybe I was in a rush.”

She could feel Eve’s eyes on her, searching her to see if that could possibly be true. When Villanelle turned to her, all wide-eyed and innocent, she saw Eve’s furrowed brow. Eve had come to terms with a great deal of Villanelle’s past but now and again, something came up that Eve found hard to swallow. Villanelle found it extremely funny.

Villanelle snorted. “You should see your face.”

They moved on from Salome, strolling through the gallery. “Okay, but have you decapitated someone before? You have to tell me if you did. As your girlfriend, you legally have to tell me.” 

Villanelle wrapped her arm around Eve’s shoulders. “No, I’ve never chopped anyone’s head off.” Then, she considered. “I’ve thought about it, studied it, and I’ve always kind of wanted to try it, but I’ve never had the time.”

They passed through another two rooms, not seeing much to pique their interests. Villanelle was going to suggest, not for the first time, that they head back to the hotel for dinner before a night out. Her patience had been stretched to its limits, and Villanelle thought she deserved a reward in exchange for her good behavior. She could see that Eve was getting tired now too and knew that this was a prime opportunity to press her advantage. 

“Fine,” said Eve. “I think we’ve seen enough art for one day. Let’s just finish our loop of the basement?” She looped her arm in Villanelle’s and they kept walking. “Thanks for coming with me today,” Eve added, sounding slightly subdued. “I hated the thought of dragging you somewhere you didn’t want to be. On our honeymoon, Niko and I went to Barcelona and it turned out he was obsessed with Gaudí. I realized I had never heard Niko have an opinion on anything we did, so I let him sign us up for a city-tour of his most famous buildings.”

“And?” prompted Villanelle. It wasn’t like Eve to bring up her ex-husband so casually. She knew Eve had a point to make.

“And it was the worst,” Eve laughed. “Oh god, I still feel kind of bad about it now, but it was a really awful day. We went to Park Guell, La Sagrada Familia, and three other buildings and by the time we were done, I could barely move. We spent that night in bed and not in a fun way. Anyway, I didn’t want to be the kind of girlfriend that dragged you to boring places you never wanted to be. So yeah, let’s go. We’ll do whatever you want for the rest of the night.”

Villanelle smirked. “You might not want to make that kind of promise.”

“I trust you.”

They moved on to one of the last rooms in the gallery and Villanelle spotted a carved statue of St. John the Baptist’s head.

“There is something to be said about serving your enemy’s head on a platter. How about it, Eve? Would you have wanted Aaron’s head? Konstantin’s? Carolyn’s? I’m willing to give it a try whenever.”

“I’ll let you know if I ever want someone’s head on a plate.”

Villanelle shrugged. “It doesn’t even have to be someone important. I’ve got a lot of free time on my hands.” She considered the alabaster head in front of her. “Maybe she thought his head would look really good on a plate. He’s got really sad eyes and such pouty lips. He was kind of made for this.”

“I don’t think anyone was made to be beheaded.”

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet.”

Eve cackled and her laugh echoed through the gallery. Villanelle smiled and turned away, her eyes landing on the retreating figure of someone she thought had been staring at them, someone she thought she recognized.

\------

Hannibal sensed that something was off about Will. Somewhere in the Middle Ages and Renaissance gallery, he had seen something that had troubled him, and Hannibal wondered whether he should watch and wait for Will to tell him on his own, perhaps back in the privacy of their apartment, or if this was something that needed to be addressed now.

He was mulling his options over when his questions were answered. At the top of the stairs, headed for the entrance of the museum, just as they were, were two women he recognized. Hannibal prided himself on never forgetting a face and these women had struck him as peculiar in the short duration of their acquaintance. Will with his empathic sensibilities had noticed something as well, though he had met the blonde only briefly. They pinged a radar in his subconscious, some dusty instrument that had sat by unused for some time now. 

He had caught it for the first time at the bar on the night of the opera: the heavily ornamented exterior of a well-crafted person-suit. The outer edges of it pulled up and away from the skin as her patience was worn down by waiting. The colors she wore were aposematic, like a poison dart frog or a blue-ringed octopus: distracting, beautiful, and belying the truth of her abilities and the depths of her heart. Hannibal had been amused by her defensiveness, by how protective she was of the other woman, Eve. He wondered if there wasn’t something darker in her as well, some dark star in both of them that pulled them together. 

So this was what had set Will on edge. A strange coincidence that had brought the four of them together again. Unless it wasn’t a coincidence that they were together once again. Though they had few reminders of their status as fugitives, living as comfortably as they did, it was nevertheless true that they were on the run from the law and that at any moment someone might decide that they were worth catching. The thought of chase and capture didn’t scare Hannibal as much as he believed it scared Will. But perhaps that was because Hannibal knew what he was capable of and willing to do to keep the life he had made for all three of them, whereas Will had depths still to be explored. 

The blonde woman noticed them as soon as they reached the top of the stairs. Her eyes hardened from suspicion to recognition in milliseconds. No, that reaction was not that of someone out to catch a target, more like that of a wolf sighting another alpha in its territory, or two sharks circling each other in a tank. Hannibal had to smile at that. It had been too long since he’d played this game. 

Without taking heed of Will at his side, Hannibal continued ahead until he had caught up to the women. He was not the kind of man to shrink from any appearance of awkwardness, h left that to lesser mortals. 

“Excuse me, ladies,” Hannibal began. The blonde’s eyes had not left him but Eve now turned to face him as well. Her features performed an odd twist of surprise and uncertainty. He couldn’t blame her for forgetting a face she had seen for only a few short moments weeks ago. “I couldn’t help but remember you from the opera in Florence last month. The whole night was truly memorable but I count our brief acquaintance during intermission as one of the highlights. What an odd twist of fate that both of our paths should leave from one beautiful city to another?”

Eve snapped her fingers and nodded. “That’s where I remember you from. And Will,” she said, noticing him for the first time. “Of course I remember. You were a psychology professor.”

“Guilty,” said Will, with that hang-dog expression he wore sometimes that made Hannibal want to pour molten caramel or plasticine resin over his features and freeze them in time. 

“And this is our daughter, Abigail.” Hannibal motioned and Abigail waved. He wondered if he imagined Eve’s smile growing easier at the sight of her. “And I’m not sure if we were fully introduced that night at the opera. I am Hannibal.”

He felt Will stiffen at his side. Hannibal knew full well that they had supplied the women with a fake name upon their first meeting. His first name was uncommon, too easily traced back to several condemning news stories. If Will didn’t know better by now, he would have said that Hannibal was behaving recklessly. Their time together had proven to Will that Hannibal never acted without confidence in things going his way. He took risks, big ones, but never without knowing in his heart that he would see himself and those he cared for through. 

Pleasantries were exchanged but Will did not relax. 

“What brings you to Amsterdam?” Hannibal asked. Will had told him that he felt cold when he acted like this around others; the slippery way he slid into the most charming and slimy aspects of his character. To Will, there had always been something off about what others read as charisma, but then again, Will had always been the one to see him clearly.

Eve spoke for the two of them. The other woman, introduced somewhat reluctantly as Kate, a name Hannibal had no doubt would prove false, didn’t seem to care if she appeared rude. 

“Just another stop on our extended vacation,” Eve said. “I’ve always wanted to visit but I’ve never had the time.”

Hannibal caught sight of Will’s eyes narrowing and hastened to push the conversation forward before he said something they might regret. “And how are you finding it?”

“It’s charming.” She looked at the three of them with slight skepticism and trepidation, sensing some small level of tension between Will, Hannibal, and her partner. Her smile never wavered though, and she outwardly she laughed off whatever strangeness was building. “Have you been in town long?”

“A couple of weeks,” said Will. He rolled his shoulder back as though shaking off Hannibal’s invisible arm holding him back. 

“But our daughter Abigail has only joined us today. She is on spring break from her studies at Georgetown.” 

Will’s body language screamed discomfort to Hannibal and he knew that the two of them were in for a long conversation at home. 

“That’s a great school,” said Eve. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” said Abigail, brightly. “The classes are hard but I really do love it.”

A surge of warmth welled in Hannibal’s chest, proud of his adopted daughter. She knew that something was amiss here, but she trusted her father well enough to know that she must be charm itself.

“Well, it was so nice to run into you again,” Kate said. She had a sunny Scouse accent that Hannibal supposed she put on when she wanted to appear polite and sweet without putting in the effort of actually being so. “We’d hate to keep you. I’m sure you’re busy.”

“No, it was lovely to see you. Perhaps our paths will cross again soon,” said Hannibal, allowing them their exit. He smiled at the thought of fate or circumstance bringing them together again, especially now that he was more certain than ever that these two women were dangerous in their own right and might make for perfect foils on his and Will’s perpetual holiday. 

“Who were those women?” asked Abigail, as soon as they were outside the museum. She passed her gaze between both of her fathers. Will too looked to Hannibal for any explanation he wanted to offer for the exchange back there. 

“New acquaintances,” said Hannibal. “Potential friends, and possible dinner guests.” He placed an arm around her shoulder and smiled warmly. “But only time will tell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter? Yes! I knuckled down, I did a lot of awesome research about Amsterdam and fashion and apartments, and just generally had a lot of fun living vicariously through this fic. 
> 
> If you want to see my inspiration for Villanelle's dress: [it's here, look 16](https://www.irisvanherpen.com/haute-couture/shift-souls). My inspiration for Hannibal and Will's Amsterdam apartment is [here.](https://www.pararius.com/apartment-for-rent/amsterdam/875922e5/keizersgracht) I mean, just check out that entryway and the kitchen, they would totally live there for a couple of months. 
> 
> You can find me on twitter [@a_ginger_midget](https://twitter.com/a_ginger_midget) and on tumblr [@thegingermidget](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thegingermidget)
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and leaving comments and kudos!


	3. Vienna

In the quiet of their hotel room, Villanelle stirred. The room was washed with faint white light from the window and the dark blue paint on the walls. They had been in Vienna for almost two weeks now, taking in the sights, the food, the fashion. This week marked a year of them traveling together; a year since they stood next to each other on that bridge and refused to turn away. Life since then hadn’t been easy or predictable, but it had been enjoyable for all of its faults. Villanelle was enjoying herself, more than she had ever enjoyed anything. For the most part.

Sure, there were times when she wanted to slow things down, when she wished she wasn’t a tourist in a new city every week or month, when she wanted to do normal things like watch television or shop for groceries just to feel like this was more than one long fever dream, that they might be able to hold on to this somehow even if it seemed too good to be true.

Sure.

But spending time with Eve, knowing her the way that she did now, getting to explore the world with someone she was sure now that she loved, those things made up for the constant movement and uprooting of their lives.

Mostly.

Villanelle could not deny that she had started having some doubts she was no longer able to shut down as small or insignificant. There were bigger issues at play for both of them, issues they had been running from for the past year. It was the question of a purpose that bothered her. The feeling that she was running away from something, a fight, a destiny, a real life, was what bothered her the most. She and Eve didn't talk about it, but she knew Eve felt it too.

They didn’t talk about it. They couldn't. They were running away from governments, from shadowy organizations that ran the world. They were two people on their own, and going back, trying to put a stop to The Twelve likely meant being put to death and silenced forever. Wasn't eternal vacation better than that? Weren’t they ungrateful for turning their noses up at something everyone on some level wanted?

It was becoming clear that their vacation wasn't going to last forever. Since leaving Amsterdam, Villanelle felt the slow tightening of their purse strings. How long was their money really going to last before they found some concrete way of supporting themselves? They weren’t in the habit of living modestly, at least, Villanelle wasn’t and she was determined not to start now.

Which left Villanelle with what felt like one option. Villanelle rose from her side of the bed without waking Eve. It was better this way, Villanelle thought. Eve didn't have to know. She slipped on her shoes and grabbed the bag she had packed the night before. It would be quick, painless, for Villanelle at least. One morning, one job, and they could be set for the next month or so. The thought of contract work made Villanelle squirm but she was willing to do it. This was what she was good at, after all. How could anyone, even Eve, expect her to do otherwise?

She stopped for breakfast on her way to the metro. Villanelle never rushed the series of events just before a kill. Everything leading up to the eventual climax felt predestined, everything arranged just so. She knew when the man would enter the cafe; she knew when he left for work. She knew just how close she could stand next to him on the metro without anyone noticing. 

She wore a hat and jogging clothes. She might as well take a lap through the Schonbrunn gardens before heading back to their room. 

The cafe bustled with a breakfast rush. Villanelle sat and enjoyed coffee and a pastry in peace. There was something different about sitting here alone in a restaurant while the world moved on around her, a star at the center of a solar system, the only one with a true purpose to fulfill. Places like this centered her, prepared her for a kill, but Villanelle couldn't help but feel differently today. She thought of having Eve beside her, her constant companion over the last twelve months. She thought of Eve asleep in their room, hopefully buying the idea that Villanelle had gone for an early morning run. 

Eve thought she was worth more than this. She believed it so much that Villanelle had started to think that it might be true, that she had grown, changed, and become someone who could do more than this. Maybe she had. But deep down this was what she was good at and she needed all of the skills she had to keep them afloat. Perhaps Eve wouldn't hate her when she found out what Villanelle had done. 

At the counter, Villanelle saw her target. He was a slim man with dark, slicked-back hair and a nervous smile. His wife found out that he had been sleeping with his secretary, one of the oldest crimes in existence. Villanelle didn't pity him. His wife and the secretary could likely do better. She didn't pity him, no. Villanelle was annoyed by him and his weaselly twitches and the fact that she was here at all, in this situation and not back in bed with Eve. She would make this quick, professional, just as Konstantin and the Twelve had tried and tried again to get her to do. This time she had an incentive. She would be quick and clean and quiet because it mattered this time. 

She followed him out of the cafe and down a flight of stairs to the subway stop, her sneakers padding along quick and silent. She knew where he lived, where he worked, the cafe he frequented every morning even after he had breakfast at home with his wife. She knew his route to work. Villanelle felt herself slip inside of that schedule. She could be anyone. A pair of joggers climbed down the stairs after her and moved toward the other end of the platform. She was like them, just another face in the crowd.

The train arrived and Villanelle boarded with the man. She smiled and apologized quietly for bumping into him. The train was packed this morning, there really was no choice but to be right on top of each other, breathing in each other's body odor, stepping on each other's toes. She fingered the razor blade in her waistband. A simple weapon, perhaps too crude, but it would be enough for this.

Hardly any time at all had passed before they reached the first stop. There were four in total before the man got off and headed to his office. Villanelle scolded herself for losing track of time. There was no need to rush things, but her window was tight and growing tighter. A new group of people crowded onto the train, more than had just gotten off. Villanelle found herself separated from her target. This wouldn't do at all. 

Villanelle made her way towards the door and though she had to push slightly, arms and backpacks and heads looking down at phones moved out of her way. As the car began to slow, she let go of the railing she'd been holding and stumbled toward the man. She caught herself with arms around his neck and steadied herself. The blade palmed in her hand cut cleanly through the bare skin at his neck. So sharp, that he apologized to her for his being in the way before he coughed, straightened his tie, coughed again, and then put his hand to the wound at his neck. 

His hand came away wet and so red it was black. He coughed again and stumbled. The train shuddered to a stop. Villanelle backed away from him slowly, pressing up against the backs of the people waiting to get out. She managed to keep the smile from her lips but she knew her eyes were lit with it. Then the man coughed again, spattering her with blood. He groaned and reached out toward her. Villanelle was sure he didn't blame her, was sure that his confusion was utterly complete. All he wanted was her solid certainty, the same support he had given her moments ago but Villanelle leaned away and his eyes widened, his face growing pale and bloodless. She screamed when he reached out toward her, actually managing to get a sticky hand on her shoulder. A couple of men pulled him back and off of her, only just noticing with her scream that something was wrong. They didn't see the blood, not until the man's legs had given way beneath him and he toppled to the floor, clearing as much room as he could in the packed train car. They didn't see that he was dying, not until Villanelle had left the train car in a flood of people and disappeared from sight. 

Villanelle tossed her hat in a trashcan and pulled her hair up in a ponytail as she moved, quickly and smoothly, as far from the platform as she could get. She ducked into a women's restroom soon after to assess the damage he had done to her shirt. There in the mirror was a streaked handprint stretching from her shoulder to her breast. Villanelle sighed. The shirt was a goner. She would have to make her way back to the hotel in her sports bra; not the worst look but one that might garner unwanted attention. She lifted the shirt up over her head there in front of the sinks and caught a couple of narrowed glances tossed in her direction. She threw that out too as she left the bathroom and headed off to catch another train. 

An hour later, after a visit to Schonbrunn Palace and a run around the garden Villanelle, satisfied and comfortably tired, walked back to their hotel room. She looked forward to a nice shower and a long breakfast before figuring out what to do with the rest of the day. She had an idea for something she wanted to do with Eve, something to take them out of the city for a few hours, but they had ages to figure that out. 

Eve was in the ensuite bathroom brushing her teeth when Villanelle came in. 

"There you are," she said, through the mirror. "You went for a run?"

Villanelle nodded and began to strip for the shower. 

"I didn't hear you get up," Eve continued, trying to fix her hair in the mirror before throwing her hands up. “It’s funny how much I’ve gotten used to you and your cold feet. The first thing I noticed this morning was that you were gone. How was it?”

"Fine," said Villanelle, suddenly feeling breathless. "Nice."

She lowered her gaze to follow Eve as she stepped closer. "Yeah? Better you than me." Villanelle's blood warmed at the sight of that look on Eve's face the way her eyes raked over Villanelle's bare skin. "I'd think about joining you in there, but I'm actually starved." 

"Mmmm," hummed Villanelle. 

"Want me to get you anything?" Eve asked, her voice too low, her body too close.

"Coffee?"

"And a krapfen?"

Villanelle tried to draw herself up and look intimidating, ignoring the fact that she was nearly nude and hiding something. "You know I'd love one."

Eve smiled slowly. "I know. They really are just donuts, though."

She reached up for a salty kiss which Villanelle returned eagerly. The morning had been a tough one and she had never been good at self-restraint. She loved how easy this was, how they could ask for what they needed with a simple hand, how they were both open and eager for this. 

Eve stepped back first and Villanelle felt like she was holding her breath. Waiting for her to say something, to leave. 

"I'll be back in a bit, enjoy your shower." 

Villanelle nodded. When Eve had disappeared down the short corridor from the bathroom to the front door, Villanelle let go of her breath. She had done it. Kept her morning a secret for now. They would talk it over eventually just... not now. Eventually. 

She removed the rest of her clothes and had her hand on the bathroom door when she heard Eve again, seconds later. She hadn't left, she was merely out of sight. 

"When were you going to tell me?"

Villanelle's jaw clenched. She debated running out into the hall or moving slowly, protesting innocence until she couldn't defend herself any longer. 

"About what?" Villanelle said. She didn't move from the bathroom door, just stood there staring at the painted wood. 

"Whatever it was you did this morning." She heard Eve's footsteps coming back toward her and turned to find their positions reversed. 

Villanelle narrowed her eyes. "I went for a run this morning." She gestured to her sweat-damp hair. "Obviously."

"Obviously," said Eve, calm and almost amiable. Villanelle usually liked the way she kept her composure in a tight situation; she just liked it better when it wasn't weaponized against her. "And what else?"

"What do you mean what else?"

"You were gone for almost three hours this morning, you came back without a shirt, and there's a bit of dry something or other on your wrist and shoulder that I'm willing to bet is blood." Eve stood there across from Villanelle and didn't move an inch closer. "I'm not stupid."

Villanelle kept her face impassive. "I never said you were."

"How did you get the job?"

She thought about lying. She could do it passably, even to Eve, even now. But Eve knew, she was so certain that she knew, and she was right. More than that, this had been coming for some time; this awful situation they now found themselves in and this conversation, where they talked about what came next.

"There are websites, chatrooms. Konstantin showed me once when we weren't with the Twelve."

Eve nodded, her lips pursed and tight. She had known she was right but it still hurt to hear it confirmed. "So you were on a job this morning and you thought you could hide it from me."

Villanelle knew she needed to say something, anything, but justifying herself had never been one of her strengths. To be fair to her though, most people she interacted with were the type to tell her to fix what she had done wrong or punish her rather than let her explain. Few people ever really cared what she thought.

"What do you want me to say? Yes, I went on a job this morning. Yes, I went looking for work. Neither of us wants to admit that this can't go on forever."

Eve's eyebrows lifted. "What?"

Villanelle stepped toward her, trying to do this gently and knowing she was probably failing. "We can't run across Europe for the rest of our lives without some kind of support. What I do pays and I know how to be careful."

"I thought we were trying to be safe," said Eve, not giving an inch. "There are too many people out there who want you dead, who want the two of us dead. I thought we had enough to keep going."

Keep going? Going where? Villanelle wondered. What were they headed toward? What end was in sight for either of them? Villanelle felt like the two of them were treading water and she was the only one willing to admit that there was no land in sight. 

"I'm not going to hide," said Villanelle. "I'm not going to live in the shadows because of them and I don't think you should either. I want to support us and— I'm sorry I didn't tell you about where I was going or what I was doing, but I can't tell you that I don't think it was right."

Eve was silent for a while, letting that sink in. Her eyes were fixed on the floor, away from Villanelle, and Villanelle wished she would look at her again. Look at her or end this and let her get some clothes on. 

"You think you can do this safely, huh?" Eve said at last. "You think that you can get away with this all on your own, without Konstantin or the Twelve to clean up your messes?"

Villanelle's face hardened. "I'd like to think I'm not on my own, not completely, but as it happens, yes I do. I have an incentive this time to keep myself safe."

"And what's that?" asked Eve, sarcasm sharpening her tone.

Villanelle lifted her head, defiantly. "I'd like to think you'd miss me if I was gone."

A laugh burst from Eve at that; short, a surprise. Eve's hand rose to her face and found her own lips, as though inspecting the site of the incident. 

"God, you're an idiot. Do you know that?"

Sensing that the tide was turning in her favor, Villanelle closed the distance between them. "How so?" she asked, leveraging her height advantage to crowd Eve against the wall.

But Eve had always been able to surprise her, perhaps especially when she was at a disadvantage. Eve shook her head, ignoring Villanelle's question. "Of course you're not alone in this. I want to help."

Eve had shifted the conversation so quickly that Villanelle was left spinning her wheels trying to catch up. Her mouth fell open.

"What are you saying?"

Eve rolled her eyes and offered Villanelle a towel, sensing that already this conversation had gone on longer than either of them had expected it to and that it was going to go on for a while longer. She brought them over to the bed in the next room and they sat there together. The change in venue was... comforting. Villanelle felt less on display here and less at odds with Eve. Here they were together, united, and ready to work this out between the two of them. She leaned forward and pictured herself leaning onto the railing of Tower Bridge, looking Eve in the eye and trying to guess where they would stand at the end of the next five minutes.

"You're right. About a lot of things actually. We can't live like this anymore, not as we have been. And you're right; what you do makes more money than most people would guess. We could try to find some other way but we'd be wasting our time." 

Villanelle couldn't deny the logic she had been repeating to herself over the last few weeks.

"But I know how badly you've tried to get away from this work. How much you hate these small petty jobs and working because you have to and not because it thrills you," Eve continued. And yes, though Villanelle had felt the familiar rush of taking a life, been exhilarated at the sight of the light leaving that small man's eyes and the blood on her hands, it wasn't the same as it once was. The thrill of performing, succeeding, was lost now that she had fallen from what felt like a great height and was reduced to jobs like this. 

But what Eve was suggesting, or what Villanelle thought Eve was suggesting, that wasn't any better. There was no need for Eve to drag herself even further down to Villanelle's level. There was no need for them both to resort to this. 

"But I know how much you wish you could pretend my line of work didn't thrill _you_. I know how hard you've tried to stay away. I can't let you do this."

Eve shrugged. "Then we're stuck. Because I won't let you take any more jobs without me being involved. I won't let you kill for me, not without my finger on the trigger right beside yours."

Villanelle snorted. "I didn't shoot anyone today, Eve. God, I don't even have a gun anymore."

"I was being poetic!"

Villanelle shook her head and sighed. "You don't know the first thing about what I do."

"Don't I?"

Their eyes met over the duvet and Villanelle let herself have a small smile to herself. 

"No, not really." 

Villanelle knew she had a choice to make. She could choose to let Eve in on everything, teach her everything she knew and everything Eve had never wanted to know; she could choose to keep her on the outside, as far from it as possible, at least until Eve got fed up and ended things; or she could leave now and strike out on her own, saving them both a disaster on both of their consciences. 

But Villanelle knew that it wasn’t really much of a choice. 

“Fine,” she said, still thinking. “Alright, fine. I’ll have some things to get ready.” She looked down at her towel. “Including myself. Meet me in the lobby at three and wear something to go hiking in.”

Eve nodded. She seemed quietly pleased. “I’ll be there.”

\------

Will woke in the soft morning light to the feeling of eyes on him. He slept on the left side of an enormous bed and his body had rolled over in the night to face the window. The eyes he felt resting on his back didn't seem to move as he blinked slowly and registered the day.

"I can feel your eyes on me," he murmured. His voice was low and parched from hours of disuse but he knew Hannibal had heard him. "You're tracing my lines with your eyes. Planning on sketching them later? With a pencil or a knife?"

"Good morning, Will."

Will rolled over onto his side to face Hannibal. He felt the familiar shock of warmth and terror he always felt in the morning. The relief that this part of himself was so near at hand and the thrill of shock, numbed over time, that he had ever climbed into bed with Hannibal, even after five years of keeping each other's bed warm. 

Hannibal smiled. "I was thinking of sketching today, perhaps we can head into the forest and you can try your hand at fishing." Their relationship had grooves worn into it over time and there was no longer any hesitation in Hannibal before he reached out to run his fingers through Will's hair. "And you know your blood is never far from my mind."

The thought should have repulsed Will but he closed his eyes and leaned into Hannibal's touch. He took Hannibal's hand with his own and brought it to his lips, kissing it once there on his palm and sliding his eyes back to Hannibal's.

"If you want," Will said. They had come to an agreement long ago about Will's fishing. After several botched attempts at teaching Hannibal to fish and enjoy it, they had settled into the comfortable routine of letting Will stand in the stream for hours on end while Hannibal waited on the shore, reading, sketching, dozing in the sun, and of course, watching Will at work. They had been in Vienna for three weeks now, situated in an estate outside of the city. After a few trips into the bustling city center, they found themselves enjoying the quiet of the countryside, the dark forests and the total solitude their lodging afforded them. They had spent weeks hunting in those woods. Hannibal taught him traps and snares for smaller game and slowly Will had come around to allowing a gun into his hands again and yesterday they went looking for something bigger. 

Their lives moved at a slow, leisurely pace. Everything they did seemed designed to test the other, bring them a little bit more out into the open, expose some new facet of the other to gleam in the light. Will found that his careful fingers were adept at making snares and Hannibal found that he enjoyed teaching. Hannibal knew that he liked watching Will and Will found that he enjoyed being watched. 

"I do," said Hannibal. He levered himself up on one side and gazed at Will. The sheets pooled at his waist and revealed him, shirtless. Hannibal slept shirtless, Will had learned. There was something solid and warm about him that Will hadn't expected. He ran hot even at night. Will had been embarrassed more than once by the fact that he sought Hannibal out in the night, that he craved his heat without thinking about it. "What do you want?"

A hot meal, some wine, a day outdoors in the sun. All things easily promised and easily gained. Will played with the edge of the sheet absently, his eyes never leaving Hannibal. "You," he said. "All of you."

Hannibal smiled and leaned in for a slow, languid kiss. Soft, warm, hot, and wet. Will recalled the night before, an anniversary of some sort. The days became blurred for him so long ago but Hannibal always kept track, always remembered even when it didn't seem important. They ate dinner out on the lawn and came in when the bugs came out. Hannibal met him upstairs and they had sex on this enormous bed. It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last, but it felt especially decadent, careful and planned but passionate all the same. Since being with Hannibal, since his becoming, he had gotten better at asking for what he wanted, at refusing to deny himself anything. Still, there were indulgences only allowed every once and a while, not because they were bad but because they were special. Last night had been special and they were still lying in the afterglow. 

Will pulled back first, gasping. He pushed himself up so that he was sitting and leaned in to keep going, to fulfill this hunger inside of him that never seemed to slake. But Hannibal kept him at arm's length, his hand in Will's hair again. He always managed to find himself in Will's hair, to pull, to stroke, to hold him still. 

"You seem to want more and more of me as of late. Does this mean you've reconsidered?"

Will's eyes were caught on Hannibal's lips and it took him a moment to realize what he had been asked. He lifted his gaze to Hannibal's. "I've thought about it," Will said, measured. "But no, I haven't."

Hannibal nodded. "A shame." He let Will go and climbed out of bed, searching for his robe. Will tried not to feel disappointed. "We could make something beautiful together, Will. No one would ever have to know."

"What's art without an audience?" Will retorted. He knew there was no way that Hannibal would ever be satisfied knowing he had an undiscovered masterpiece hidden out there in the world.

"Art for art's sake? Why should pain and suffering be the only random acts in this world?" Hannibal asked, sounding like a self-satisfied Socrates. Though, hadn’t the real Socrates been too conceited for this world too?

"I know full well that what you and I would do together would not amount to some random act of kindness in this world."

"But it might make things better, at least for the two of us. Why should the world matter much at all beyond that?"

They've had this argument so many times, Will actually smiled when Hannibal said that. "You had your fun in Florence. Can't that be enough for now?"

Hannibal’s shoulders rose and fell laconically. "For now. We both know it won't be enough for long."

They headed down to breakfast before Hannibal informed Will that they weren't headed out onto the grounds for today's fishing excursion but to a public park of all things. It was still a good distance from the city center but apparently, the fishing would be better there. Will shrugged this time. Over the past few years, he had proven himself more than willing to go along with what Hannibal wanted, at least in unimportant things like this. On more serious matters, Will knew how to hold his ground. 

The park was a wide expanse of green, dark forests, hills and valleys, and rushing streams. They marched along the path with their gear and Will felt as though he were in a fairytale. He was on his way to see grandmother, accompanied by the wolf. He liked getting out of the city. There were fewer people out here. His extra-sensory perception of other people went offline in the countryside. Hannibal didn't even seem to ping it anymore. He could stand knee-deep in a stream and not think about anything or anyone, feeling Hannibal's eyes on him from the shore like the sun on his back. It had taken them some time to really figure each other out, but it was hard to deny now that they had. 

"Tell me, Will," Hannibal had asked, one night not too long ago. "If you could travel anywhere, live anywhere in the world, where would it be? You once told me that you saw your life ahead of you as a room full of shadows, but our perception of reality does not always reflect what we wish it could be. Is your perception clearer now? Do you know where it is you would like to be?"

Will swallowed. His mouth was dry as it sometimes got when Hannibal began asking him about what he wanted. The things he desired most in this world were intangible, often unattainable, and yet he had never had as much access to them as he had these past few years with Hannibal. 

"I see myself standing in a stream," Will said. "With my rod and reel in my hands. The current sweeping against my legs. It's fall turning to winter and it’s cold, but the sun is shining down upon my face so that I don't feel it. I look out across the water and see you sitting on the bank. I feel that same warmth when I look at you." Will looked down at his hands then, feeling his calluses for want of something to do. "I think the place doesn't matter so much as the feeling. Safety, serenity, home."

"And the feeling of certainty you get from having your destiny clutched in your own two hands."

"And the adoration of someone who sees me, all of me, and isn't repulsed."

Hannibal smiled then. "I think we have that in common."

They made their way to the stream and set down their supplies. Hannibal spread out a blanket and retrieved his sketchpad and charcoal from within the picnic basket, while Will put on his boots and waders. His equipment was far nicer now than anything he had ever owned, but he fit his line with a fly he had made just this past week. It was crafted by hand from some of the things Will had found walking around the estate. A few feathers, blue, brown, and gold; a bramble he had found stuck to his shirt; a few hairs he had found close to the perimeter of the property that Hannibal had determined to be wolf hair, though they were supposedly rare in this region at this time of year. 

He stepped out into the waters and his feet felt the cold through his rubber boots. River rocks turned slowly under his weight as he picked his way out carefully to the center of the stream. With the water reaching the middle of his thighs, Will cast his line, rolled his neck back and forth on his shoulders, and settled in to wait. 

The spot Hannibal had selected was beautiful and quiet. Though Will had been nervous about a public park, hardly anyone wandered past. He looked up onto the river bank to see Hannibal had shifted his position from leaning back against a tree and sketching to lazing on his back, dozing. One leg and one well-made shoe were draped over the other as he basked in the dappled sunlight. 

Will didn't have any plans for catching anything today. He was unfamiliar with the river, with the fishing in Austria in general, and with what might be biting at this time of year. He did some preliminary research, but he didn't know the area as well as he knew the river near his home in Wolf's Trap, once upon a time. He knew that Hannibal could do wonders with whatever he managed to catch, but he also knew that Hannibal could do wonders with whatever happened to be on the table tonight. They would dine well regardless.

Instead, Will spent the time getting used to feeling a part of something larger than himself, getting attuned to some foreign current, trying to feel for whatever might be biting. Waiting, watching, and listening. There were fish in these waters, he knew that much. It was a matter of sounding them out, of seeing how and when they liked to bite, and striking at precisely the right moment. And if he caught something, he caught something, and if not, a day spent in the sunshine was not a day wasted.

That same night that Hannibal had asked him that question, about where he would go if he had the choice, he had followed up with another question. He had pursed his lips together as though suppressing a broader smile and leaned into Will.

"And this sun that warms your skin and brings light to your winter, does it smile down upon you, Will? Does it light up the dark corners of your heart and bring you satisfaction?"

They were seated at the dinner table, not one that belonged to them necessarily. Hannibal liked to stay put in towns for a while. He was a plant that liked to put down roots and taste the soil, while Will was used to being uprooted on a whim. This was one dinner out of many, at one dinner table out of many, and yet that night stuck out to Will out of many. It was the night before Hannibal convinced him to go after the man in Florence. It had been too long, Hannibal said. The hunger pangs had grown undeniable. And if there had ever been a perfect place to do it it was there. An international center of art and culture as the backdrop to their first co-authored work of art. 

The man was young. Beautiful in the same way that a flower is at the height of its bloom. The kind that rots away slowly at the edges, leaving no trace of it behind at all. He was arrogant and rude and beautiful. The son of a wealthy family with a townhouse in the city itself and a villa out in the hills. His girlfriend said something he didn’t appreciate over dinner and she ended the night with a red welt rising high on her cheekbone. Will and Hannibal exchanged a glance from across the room at the sight of it. The thought slowly crystallized between them until it became an idea, real and solid. Will had resisted for so long, found so many reasons to quell the need to create. Art, peace, justice, all in service to the need to make. At last, his will gave out. Now it seemed inevitable. They left having overpaid for their meal and without waiting for the check.

Will had been cold in the days leading up to it. His being was torn between the self he knew and the self he had become. Traveling with Hannibal had given him the chance to explore other parts of himself, the rooms that had remained dusty and closed for years while Will sold himself to the exploration of darkness and death. He had grown used to the cool breezes that swayed the curtains of his mind and the light that entered through their windows. He had tried to forget about the rooms of his mind he had been living in before, the one's whose doors he had once found so difficult to close. 

He and Hannibal had taken the body to the woods, shaped him under the moonlight. The long dark shadows of the trees and the brilliance of the moon on such a clear night had given the piece a look of chiaroscuro. It accentuated the gorgeous curves of the man's face, highlighted the bronze and copper in the man's lush brown curls, and defined the toned muscles of his bare chest and arms. They had draped him in silk and brocade, ivory and navy blue, just around the waist, and positioned him kneeling toward the moon. He was penitent now as he had never been in life. The grimace of death on his features had relaxed in the transportation and rigor mortis set his face into something serene and patient. 

Hannibal had worked with Will on the arrangement; their relationship became one of master and student. Master and extremely talented student, for Will had an instinct and a passion for the work that he had smothered for so long. Where Hannibal's taste had been cultivated, Will's was intuitive. His hands were adept and certain and Hannibal found himself stepping back for Will to take the lead. 

They left no trace of themselves in the woods that night. Only the work of art they had left behind. Hannibal's main contribution was the location: a secluded glade deep in the woods, the path most visible at night. There was no way of being certain that the work would ever be viewed as intended, but the practice of creating beauty was just as important and beautiful as the work itself. Perhaps more so, for the singular experience of it; a singular experience shared by Hannibal and Will alone. 

They had become closer after that night, in a way Will hadn't been sure was possible. There was a gentleness, a vulnerability shared between them that somehow softened some of the sharp edges they liked to poke each other with. 

And on that other night, when they had been talking about the sun and some ideal future, Will had turned to Hannibal and smiled. It started as a small, self-conscious thing, with Will unable to meet Hannibal's eyes. But then his gaze moved upwards and he saw the open expectation on Hannibal's face and his smile grew. 

Today, standing in the stream, in some completely different part of the world, Will felt the current sweeping past his knees. The air was warm, not quite the fall glen he had pictured all those nights ago. His sun was dozing on the riverbank, waiting for him to come home, and somehow the world felt right.

\-----

Eve watched Villanelle's back as they hiked through the woods together. Villanelle seemed to have some idea of where they were headed and Eve was more than willing to follow. She also found herself absently marveling at how Villanelle managed to hike in couture. A dark brown tank top stretched across her back and curled up into a cowl around her neck with the sleeves curved in more than expected, perhaps providing extra room for movement. She was wearing snake-print leather trousers that didn't seem to cling to her legs or chafe in the heat and matching boots. All this, and still carrying a heavy black case on her back, containing two compound bows, targets, and enough arrows for them to practice with.

An hour ago, when Eve met Villanelle in the lobby of their hotel after being told they were going hiking, she thought she must have misunderstood. She was wearing a button-up gingham shirt and jeans, and after marching through the woods for the last half-hour, still wasn't sure if she was ever going to understand Villanelle's fashion choices but she liked the way she looked. 

They drove from their hotel to a park outside of Vienna's city center. Villanelle was quiet the whole way there. She still seemed to be mulling over Eve's proposal, turning it over in her mind. They were, presumably, coming out here to the woods to do something about it, but Eve wasn't sure what, just yet.

For all of her nerves about what they were about to do, Eve found herself falling back and looking at the park they found themselves in. The sky above was almost completely covered by tree limbs and the forest floor was left dark and cool, shaded from the summer heat. The late afternoon sun was just beginning to turn the green edges of the leaves golden and less and less light filtered down below. There weren't many people in the park. This preserve was wide and sprawling. Outside of the car park at the entrance, groups of people were few and far between. When it felt like it had been ten minutes since they had last seen anyone, Villanelle pulled them off of the path and into a clearing. 

Eve watched as Villanelle knelt to the ground and began unpacking their supplies. 

"Do you plan on telling me what we're doing all the way out here?" Eve asked. She lifted one eyebrow as Villanelle began assembling... whatever about a compound bow needed to be assembled right out of the case. She nearly jumped backward when Villanelle passed one to her. 

"You wanted to learn how to do what I do. I need to know you're not going to kill me or yourself with a basic weapon."

Eve plucked what she assumed was the bowstring with her finger. "This is basic? Have you ever actually used one of these to, you know."

"I have." Villanelle grabbed their target and fixed it to a tree opposite them. 

"Sorry, it just seems a bit impractical compared to a knife or a gun." Eve wasn't sure what Villanelle was thinking. The bow in her arms felt fantastical, imaginary, not like something that could actually be used to kill someone. 

Villanelle stilled. "I wanted to give you something that wouldn't scare you."

"I'm not scared."

Villanelle turned to face her for the first time since they had arrived. "No? If I handed you a gun, you wouldn't think about how easy it would be to pull the trigger and end someone's life? If I handed you a knife, you wouldn't think about all of the times my hand has plunged one of them deep into someone's flesh. I'm giving you a bow because I want to see your aim, your stillness, your ability to take direction. If all of that goes well we can work on the other stuff later."

Eve looked at Villanelle again with new eyes. Villanelle wasn't upset, she wasn't even conflicted about what she was about to teach Eve to do, not anymore. Villanelle was taking this seriously and that in itself was enough to make Eve stand up a little straighter. 

"So how are we going to do this?" Eve asked. Villanelle picked up her own bow and held an arrow delicately between her fingers. She lined up her shot carefully and the odd cut of her top gave Eve a good look at her toned arms. Then in a flash, it was gone. Eve hardly even noticed Villanelle's fingers pull back from the bowstring. The rest of Villanelle hardly seemed to move at all until she saw that the arrow had hit its target. 

"Like that," she said. "Over and over again."

They moved to about twenty feet away from the target and Villanelle set the bag of arrows between them. Feeling unprepared, Eve picked up an arrow of her own and notched it. She glanced at Villanelle beside her and then back at the target. An inhale, an exhale, and Eve gave it her best shot. 

She wasn't quite sure where that arrow ended up. 

"Any tips for me, coach?" Eve asked, trying not to feel disappointed. 

"Plenty. Pick up another arrow." 

Eve did, but this time Villanelle stepped in closer. With one hand, she positioned Eve's grip on the arrow and the bowstring. With the other, she brought Eve's shoulders down and lined the shot up slightly off from where Eve had placed it. 

"Are you tense?" Villanelle asked.

"Trying not to be."

Villanelle pushed Eve's feet slightly farther apart to adjust her stance. When she was satisfied, she didn't step back. 

"Feel this position?"

Eve nodded. 

"Like it?"

"Sure," Eve nearly laughed. 

"Eventually, you'll set this up all on your own. You'll remember how it feels and you'll do it quickly. Don't take too long, don't doubt yourself, just remember this."

The words heated the back of Eve's neck. She felt Villanelle's arms wrapped gently around her, guiding her to a surer shot. Alright then, she thought, let's do this. An inhale, an exhale, this time to center her, and then she let go. 

It wasn't a perfect bullseye, but it was close.

"I did it," Eve said, not quite believing it.

"Sure," said Villanelle, charitably. There had been a great deal of help involved, but her fingers had launched an arrow that hit its mark, and maybe that was something to celebrate. "Now do it again."

"Are you going to help me this time? I don't think I've completely mastered it with one go." Eve had trouble suppressing a smirk.

Villanelle stepped in close again, her hands in the same spot as last time.

"This is why you wanted to teach me archery, isn't it?" Eve whispered to the arrow near her lips.

"It might have had something to do with it."

Eve's aim got better over the course of the next hour. They didn't lose another arrow and she even managed to hit the target with all of the arrows one round, without Villanelle's help. 

"I might be a natural," Eve said. 

"I might be a good teacher," Villanelle countered.

"I might be a good student."

"We'll see about that."

They took a break for water and to rest Eve's arm and grip. The first few arrows flew with little fatigue but the repetitive motion took its toll. Villanelle went to put up another target board and to search for that still-missing arrow. 

"Where did you get this stuff, anyway?" Eve asked when she returned to lean against the tree Eve was sitting against.

"A hunting store."

"And they just let you buy it? You don't need a license or something?"

"They have strange laws here. The equipment was easy to get but we're not technically allowed to kill anything with it." 

Eve considered the weapon in her hands. It was sort of funny how it could and could not be like a game. She had almost forgotten while trying to compete with Villanelle shot for shot that this was in preparation for something darker. Perhaps Villanelle had been right to start with something like this, get some basic skills under her belt, and then move on to something more dangerous. 

"So these are just for practice, then."

"Until we can get to a gym or a shooting range. I thought this was nicer."

Eve leaned back against the tree and looked up into the canopy. The golden rays of setting sunlight filtered in through the leaves. They would have to get going soon.

"It is nice."

\-----

"What's in the basket?" Will asked when he finally climbed out of the river sometime in the late afternoon. The color was high in his cheeks and he had that breathless exhilarated look he got sometimes when they were alone in nature. Hannibal had tried to commit that look to paper once or twice before but always found that his sketches paled in comparison to the real thing. Just as film touches places still image never could, the living, breathing Will before him with that brightness in his eyes that made him look ten years younger possessed a quality that perhaps art would never be able to capture.

Hannibal set his sketchpad aside when he noticed Will approach. The vague lines of Vienna's natural history museum lay half-finished on the blanket beside him as he turned to the picnic basket he had prepared for them.

"A tomato and cabbage tabbouleh with Aleppo pepper and fresh mint, porchetta sandwiches with marinated onions and salsa verde, an apple strudel, and a bottle of Spätlese Riesling I've been wanting to try."

Will sat down sportingly after taking off his fishing gear. He took his hat off and shook out his curls. "I'll never understand how you find the time."

"I don't find the time, I make it," Hannibal said.

"Right. While you were baking bread and pickling onions, you just happened to make some time to roast porchetta and head to the market." Will leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth and Hannibal let him. His lips were salty from his time out in the fresh air. "And then you went to take your exercise, talk to the man at the vineyard, and come home in time to have dinner with me."

Will helped himself to silverware and a plate. "Are you complaining that I don't make enough time for you?" Hannibal asked, amusement evident in his voice.

"I'm simply marveling at your time management skills. Truly, you are superhuman."

"I'll toast to that." Hannibal offered him a glass of wine which Will accepted. There was something about dining outdoors that opened everything up; the flavors, the textures, the mood of the conversation. It wasn't his preferred way to share a meal, but Hannibal knew that there was a reason it had been done for centuries, and it wasn't just convenience. 

They tucked into the meal, Will with relish after fishing for a couple of hours on end and Hannibal with slightly more careful consideration of every flavor that came across his palate. He didn't mind that Will often ate like he might never see another bite again. It was a product of how he was raised and a way he showed enjoyment. A hearty appetite was not something to begrudge anyone, particularly when Will was so appreciative afterward. 

"Have you been baking again?" Will asked. He took a sip of wine after polishing off the sandwich and considered the strudel.

"I find it more therapeutic than I initially expected. It's an exacting and patient process that takes time to learn properly. I find it fascinating to be a student once again. There is so much to learn and learn right and the by-blows of my education have not been unpleasant."

Will sliced the apple strudel and added it to both of their plates. "Not unpleasant at all."

Hannibal sat in his shirtsleeves as they finished their meal. The wine vanished quickly and comfortably. The sun had gone amber in the trees above them but the heat that had been oppressive earlier in the day had yet to dissipate. Will lounged on the blanket, his head on Hannibal's jacket, while Hannibal finished a cup of coffee from a thermos. His gaze lingered over the long lines of Will's legs as he did. For once, he had a hard time imagining a world in which he would rather be. The sun, the shade, the food, the company; this seemed like the best of all possible worlds. 

Not usually one to rush what he enjoyed, Hannibal found himself having to be the one to wrap up their picnic in the park. The shadows of the trees were growing ever longer and they should leave before the park closed. Perhaps they would go into town tonight, sit in a bar and listen to some music. He sometimes longed for the company of other people, though he knew Will did not. Hannibal knew himself to be something of a perplexing social creature, at once both seeking and abhorring the company of other people. He liked to engage, to toy, to find out what made other people unique. Will found himself doing the same and yet diving much deeper. The minds of other people influenced his own and so he much preferred a quiet evening at home to a night out on the town. Still, he acquiesced to Hannibal's will on occasion. He looked so amenable lying there on the picnic blanket, satisfied from their meal. Perhaps tonight would be one of those nights he was willing to do anything. 

Will had been dozing lightly when Hannibal placed a hand on his shoulder. His eyes blinked open slowly, catching the light in his irises. Hannibal couldn't help the corners of his mouth lifting at the sight. They gathered their belongings and Will began talking about his fishing, how it had gone today, how it was different from back in Maryland. Hannibal listened to the tenor rumblings of Will's voice as he carefully folded the blanket and stowed their things away. He liked listening to Will talk. He liked that Will felt comfortable doing so, freely and of his own volition. He had never been particularly comfortable with small talk before. Perhaps it was because, and Hannibal felt himself noticing the same, that talking with Will never felt small. Every detail he offered up about himself felt important, like he was rolling over and exposing a chink in his armor that he never let anyone else see. It had been like that when Will was his patient, but things were so different now that Will no longer felt obligated to share things with him, he wanted to.

They were just about to leave really, though Will didn't seem to want to get up off of the ground just yet, when someone stumbled out onto the pathway nearby.

"I thought you knew the way back."

"This is a shortcut."

"I don't remember a river on the way out here— oh."

Two women stepped out of the woods and happened upon the remains of their picnic. A blonde and a dark-haired woman. Two women Hannibal recognized. Interesting. The dark-haired woman, Eve as Hannibal recalled, had recognized them as well. Her initial remark had been one of surprise at finding anyone here at all but that was soon eclipsed by a narrowing of her eyes and a subtle straightening up as she realized she knew these men in the woods. 

"It's you," Villanelle said, short and suspicious, as she came to stand at Eve's side. "From Amsterdam."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance once again," Hannibal said, but he didn't smile. 

"What brings you to Vienna?" Will asked, finally sitting up fully to look at them.

Eve shrugged. "Still finding our way on our extended vacation. You?"

"Likewise."

Hannibal sensed a growing tension between the group and was amused with it for a moment. He couldn't quite explain what had drawn the four of them together or what intrigued him so much about the women, but he had a strong suspicion and he liked to go with his gut, particularly when the situation seemed dangerous. 

"It seems as though fate has brought our paths together once again. I suggest we capitalize on the opportunity. It's clear that your plans are similarly aligned with ours. Do you have a next destination in mind?" Hannibal asked.

Eve looked to Villanelle who did not return her glance before she said, "We were just discussing that really. We've been in Vienna for a couple of weeks now and we've been thinking about making another move, but we haven't decided on anywhere just yet."

"It's nice here," Villanelle added, her voice cold.

"The city and the surrounding countryside are lovely, but if I could offer a suggestion, I've been meaning to take my partner back to my estate in Lithuania. It's been a while since I've been home and I would like to mark the occasion with something of a feast. I would be honored if the two of you would consent to make the trip there and we could all get the chance to know one another better." He addressed himself to both women equally but finished with his eyes on Villanelle who was staring daggers at both him and Will. 

Eve looked to Villanelle again but found herself once more, unable to get her attention. "Well," she looked back and forth between Hannibal and Will.

"I know the circumstances are unusual, but I think you can agree, it's funny that we keep running into each other like this," Will said and Hannibal could have kissed him for it. He was the lure, the beautiful, shining thing that made it seem like everything was alright. He looked wholesome, honest, and familiar in a way that Hannibal often did not. It was time to get to know these people and Will would seal the deal. 

“I don’t know,” said Eve. She still hadn’t gotten a response out of Villanelle and it was clear she didn’t want to make this decision for them unilaterally. “You’re right, this running into each other have definitely made me wonder about you but I’m not sure—”

“—We’d love to,” said Villanelle. Eve’s eyes widened.

Hannibal pounced. “It’s settled then. We’ll set a date for the 14th of August and you can stay the week if you like.” He produced a cell phone from his inner jacket pocket. “Would you like my number so we can arrange the details?”

Villanelle slipped Eve’s phone out of her jeans’ pocket and took down Hannibal’s number. With their information shared, Eve seemed to regain control of herself. 

“Well, this sounds amazing. I’m really looking forward to it but if you’ll excuse us, it’s getting late and we have dinner reservations.” She bordered on rude for a moment but Hannibal allowed it. After all, she had just had quite a surprise and her partner was sure to get an earful as soon as they were out of earshot. 

“Not at all, we wouldn’t want to keep you. Auf Wiedersehen.” Hannibal couldn’t help himself as he added the last. He hoped his accent would lead them to overlook the quip.

Eve and Villanelle turned away to leave but he could see that Eve had caught the tail end of his words.

“Ha. Until we meet again. At least we have a date this time.”

Hannibal was already planning the menu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I meant to get this out a month ago but grad school and life and slowly pushing the writing rock up the Sisyphean hill have made getting this out sooner a bit difficult. But here she is! Longer than I would have thought but there you go (as long as the first 2 chapters put together, I thought about splitting it up), a bit of a bonus for waiting so long. Thank you so much as well for commenting and leaving kudos. I've been awful about responding to comments but they really do mean the world to me. Thanks for taking the time to leave them.
> 
> Villanelle’s archery outfit consists of [this top](https://www.brownsfashion.com/hk/shopping/mugler-ribbed-knit-turtleneck-vest-15335793) and the pants that they pair it with on that website. I was also thinking [these boots](https://m.saks.com/pd.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374306644907&productCode=0400012051186&R=190937949784&P_name=Mercedes+Castillo&N=306644907) to go along with it. And I mean sure, a sleeveless look for archery is not the best, but an arm guard with that look… pretty hot, not gonna lie. Also, Eve might be wearing a gingham shirt to hike through the woods, but Villanelle bought it for her and it cost $450. 
> 
> You can find me on twitter [@a_ginger_midget](https://twitter.com/a_ginger_midget) and on tumblr [@thegingermidget](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thegingermidget)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I've been in something of a writing slump throughout this pandemic and I've decided to take my creativity back by force! This was such a fun idea and just my contribution to some of the crossover stuff that's come up between these two fanbases. 
> 
> If you want to see my inspiration for Villanelle and Eve's dresses look [here](http://searchingforstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Love.DolceGabbana.SS13-1.jpg) and [here.](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fi%2Fmoments%2F1041833249323016193&psig=AOvVaw2LuLbVpgeVQswQ83haU3F2&ust=1596821591424000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCNiOpJGOh-sCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD)
> 
> You can find me on twitter [@a_ginger_midget](https://twitter.com/a_ginger_midget) and on tumblr [@thegingermidget](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thegingermidget)


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